


My Peril and My Pain

by Natassia74



Series: The Winter Falls Collection [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Childbirth, F/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-05 21:14:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20279908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natassia74/pseuds/Natassia74
Summary: "He runs his fingers over Brienne's belly, traces a pattern of lions and stars on it, wonders if the babe can see the press of his fingers, just as he can sometimes catch a glimpse of her hands or feet."The story of the birth of Jaime and Brienne’s first child.  Feels and fluff and a little angst.





	1. Butterflies - Jaime

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, I shouldn't be writing this with two unfinished stories. But this is what happens when I get sent to a very boring conference...with an ipad.
> 
> Set between the final chapter and the epilogue of Winter Falls.

**JAIME**

He wakes to the squawking of gulls, the grinding of carriage wheels and the distant cries of a rooster. Life is returning to Kings Landing, both outside his window, and inside his wife. 

Brienne is curled on her side, her hair and cheek illuminated by the soft morning light that peeks through the gold curtains of the Lord Commander's chambers. She's snoring softly, one hand under her chin, the other beneath her burgeoning belly.

Jaime reaches across and brushes a stray strand of hair from her forehead. She'll never be pretty, but the pregnancy has softened her hard edges, given her breasts and curves and a more womanly shape. It makes him feel intensely protective, even as he knows she would be better able to protect herself than he. 

He smiles, shuffles closer to her, and wraps his left arm around her middle, under her breasts and above the bulge. He traces his fingers lightly across the soft fabric of her shift, feeling the strange sponginess of her belly beneath. _My child is in there_. He hopes for a kick, a sign of her presence, but the babe is quiet, sleepy likes her mother.

_Our child. _

_Her first. _ _My fifth. _

Four he has lost, one before birth, two in his arms, the fourth to tragedy when he wasn't there. _Perhaps even because I wasn't there. _ He can’t change the past, but he can swear that this time will be different. She - and Jaime is sure the baby is a 'she', despite Brienne’s insistence that he can't possibly know - will recognise him as her father. He will hold her and protect her and love her_. _Not as a replacement for his other children (because nothing could do that) but a complement to them, a chance to honour their memory by learning from it.

He smiles to himself as he imagines Joffrey's disgust at such a sentiment. _Joff __would have raved and ranted at even at the thought of something 'complementing’ him, affronted at the suggestion he had an equal. _Myrcella would understand though. She was beautiful like her mother, kind like her grandmother, and dutiful like Aunt Genna. _She should be married with her own child by now,_ he thinks sadly.And then there was poor Tommen. Innocent and trusting and singularly unsuited to kingship. Sacrificed to Cersei's ego, the Tyrells' ambition, the High Sparrow's scheming. _And I did nothing about it. _

_But then I did nothing about Joff, either, even though I knew he would be a very bad king. _

_(Even though Lod the kennel boy knew he would be_ _a very bad king)._

_I failed Rhaegar’s children too._

Jaime swallows, and determinedly fights back the black dog that still plagues his mind with thoughts like these. It will never leave him, and perhaps it never should, but he's getting better at controlling it. _No more late night suicide runs. _

It is a marvel, he thinks determinedly, that he had three such different children. He wonders what this one will be like. Tall, certainly, and blond. Brave too - both he and Brienne are brave - but surely less reckless than he. Determined, focused, but hopefully a little more loquacious than Brienne. S_omeone who’ll describe their day with more than “fine.” _

He runs his fingers over Brienne's belly, traces a pattern of lions and stars on it, wonders if the babe can see the press of his fingers, just as he can sometimes catch a glimpse of her hands or feet. He wonders too if she can hear him when he talks away to her mother. Sam Tarly is convinced she is almost fully cooked, weeks if not days to go, so she must have ears. Tommen had come early, he recalls, and even he had ears and eyes and tiny fingers to touch. 

The mysteries of pregnancy are not entirely new to him, but this intimate, languid touching and wondering is. Cersei had never let him feel her stomach when it was anything but taut, and only rarely had they lain together like this, never when she was pregnant. She had let him have her while big with child, demanded it, but she had always been covered and removed from him, even when they both knew it was his child she carried. Brienne, too, has moments of nervousness or embarrassment about her new body, or at least its limitations, but she's never shy of drawing his hand to her stomach when the babe moves, or letting him hold her like this as it grows. 

Brienne murmurs something, draws in a breath with a most unladylike snort. He smiles and pulls her to him more tightly, settling her lower back to his groin. She stirs against his chest. The closer contact sends a wave of heat and longing to his gut, and then lower. 

He moves his hand from her stomach to a newly swollen breast. _More a handful than a mouthful now_, he thinks greedily, gently stroking her, feeling the nipple harden. He has to be careful, she’s more sensitive there now, but even that has its advantages. She sighs, a sensual sound. The heat in his groin ignites gently and his cock stirs interestedly against her rear. 

Some part of Brienne feels it too, wants it, because she shuffles back against him. Her body uncoils, flattens against his, until their thighs touch and their feet intertwine. She's in the dawn of waking, where she could go either way, and he is caught between letting her sleep, and rousing her for a languid morning fuck. The selfless part of him knows that, this close to term, sleep is difficult for her. _It would be selfish to wake her, deprive her that rest. _But his insistent cock reminds him that once the baby comes, there will be weeks, if not months, of chastity awaiting him. She shuffles against him again, soft skin making his hands tremble and his cock jump to full alert, and his desire surges. 

_Fuck it. _ He’s not the good man Brienne thinks he is, not quite yet anyway, and he succumbs to the selfish option. He’ll allay his guilt by making it good for her, too. 

He lowers his good hand to to the edge of her shift, where it rests on her thigh. He lifts the linen up gently, his fingers tracing her skin as he does. Simultaneously, he pushes the linen off her shoulder too, kisses the exposed freckles, the scars at the base of her neck, the throbbing pulse point. She gasps and stiffens, rubs herself against him. Good, she’s awake.

“Jaime…” She moans gently, voice muffled with sleep but laced with affection and the rumble of desire. 

“Need you…” He grunts. “Now.”

“Mmm…” She mumbles her ascent. 

She raises her chin, exposing a creamy but freckly length of neck to his ministrations. 

He trails his hand from her hip, through the curls at the juncture of her thighs, and then lower between her folds. He walks two fingers along a familiar trail, until he finds her enticing entrance. She’s wet and ready. He gently presses his fingertips inside her, gathers a little moisture, then draws it up, coating her. She raises her leg to give him better access, turns her head so he can capture her mouth in a kiss. He works her with his fingers, uses the pattern of stoking and pressing that he knows she enjoys. It’s safe, familiar, something he has done dozens of times before, and yet it’s still as intoxicating as any wine and as exciting as any duel. 

He works her quickly, eager to be inside her. He can, gratifyingly, recognise the signs of her approaching peak, the panting that becomes increasingly groaning, the tightening of her arse against him, the way her left hand closes and flexes, again and again. Her right hand reaches behind her, grasps for his stump, finds it and clings. It doesn't take long. She stiffens, slams her legs together, holds his hand to her with her powerful thighs and grinds against him as she lets out a soft, mewling cry. Sated, she relaxes against him with a sigh.

He holds her for a moment, but only a moment. He’s too desperately, fervently, needy to rest for long. His plans for a slow fuck are gone. He moves his hand back to her left hip, and works his stump beneath the other one. Then he flips her onto her knees. She moans something, and drops her head to rest on her forearms. He bunches her shift up toward her shoulders, exposing her back and her belly, hanging low. He scrambles to kneel behind her, and takes a moment to admire the way she is open before him, wet and inviting._ Here, she is undeniably beautiful_, he thinks. He gives her a gentle, lingering stroke, and she quivers. _My place_, he thinks, _mine. _He takes his cock in hand, positions himself, and pushes inside her.

Their low, long moans fill the room.

With his hands on his rear, he gives a few experimental thrusts. It feels glorious. She has muscles everywhere. A few more, and he is already near coming. Then she pushes herself up, onto all fours, and drops her back like a cat. He lets put a strangled cry at the change in position. The angle and pressure is exquisite. 

“Gods yes…” He groans, mouth finding her ear. "This...love it...love you..."

He loves taking her like this. Loves the feel of her clenching around him, loves watching the interplay of her muscles across her broad back, loves hearing the sounds she makes. Safely ensconced between the thick stone walls of White Tower, she is comfortable to vocalise, just as she does in battle. Groans and grunts and cries of abandon. 

Wanting more contact, he bends low over her, putting his left arm and stump on the mattress, pressing his chest against her back. She is too big for him to cover her, but even the pregnant she is strong enough to bear some of his weight, and she has assured him she loves the feel of him against her as he plunges into her. He gets control of himself, slows the pace, kisses the back of her neck, beneath her ear, her cheek. He rubs his chest against the smooth expense of her skin.

“Mmm…” she hums. “Good.”

“Yes...,” he agrees, teeth gnawing at the soft skin under her ear. He must have found a particularly sensitive spot, because she gasps, and clenches around him, thrusts back toward him. 

His cock leaps. “Fuck!”

He can’t hold back the rising tide, the urge to thrust harder, the need for release. He pushes himself up, left hand clenching at her hip, right arm rest on her back. He plunges into her roughly her roughly, a half a dozen hard strokes, before he comes, spilling inside her with a yell. 

He collapses, stump giving way beneath him. But as he does he catches her, rolling her into him and taking her down next to him. He holds her to his chest, his wet cock still pressing against her backside. They lie like that for many minutes, entwined, catching their breath, enjoying just touching. She gently, a little possessively, strokes his forearm where it rests under her breasts. He licks the sweat off her neck.

“I can’t believe we’re still doing this,” she says, finally, dreamily. 

Other couples, he knows, have separate bedrooms by now, the husband having done his duty and having no reason not to leave his wife alone, likely to her relief. His cousin Daven has such a marriage, as do many others. He had never wanted such a thing.

He chuckles. “Why would we _ever_ stop?” 

But he can feel her stiffen at his answer. He pauses, curses himself. She is thinking about the birth - always about the birth - and what could happen. _Fool. _

He doesn't want to give her the impression that he expects, _this_, immediately afterwards. “Well, except maybe for a bit after you have the baby…if you're ...well...”

And suddenly he is lost for words, not even sure what he is trying to say. 

"If I'm injured," she finishes for him, her voice a whisper.

_Injured. Or worse. _The word strikes at their unspoken fears, and he cringes inwardly, squeezes her tightly. 

“I know you're scared,” he says. _Gods, I am too. _

“Yes. Scared of the pain, but also the unknown. I don't like being unprepared. I feel like I’m entering a melee without knowing how to use a sword. Even _you_have more experience with this than I do."

He kisses the back of her neck, wonders if that gods cursed septa of hers taught her anything that was actually useful. _Having babies is pretty much what highborn women do. Why the fucking secrecy? _He probably does know more than her, but he has enough learned empathy these days to know not to flaunt.

“I have different experiences. I can’t possibly know what it feels like to have a child inside me. Or to push one out.”

He runs his had over her belly, and he feels a sudden, wonderful, tap against his hand. The babe. Brienne feels it too, and moves her hand to cover his. She must feel it all the time, and from the inside. _It __feels like butterflies_, she'd told him. Oddly, they were the same words that Cersei had used, and it was an equally surprisingly analogy from both of them. Neither were the kind of woman drawn to butterflies. _Myrcella may have been,_ he thinks absently, and smiles_, _even as sadness floods the edges of his vision again. He wonders if this daughter will like them. He imagines having a bright blue and gold one painted on a wooden tourney shield. _Now that __would raise some eyebrows. _

After a little while, Brienne wiggles, and somewhat awkwardly and clumsily, turns her body around to face him. She meets his eyes nervously. 

“You do know what happens when a woman gives birth. You've _seen _it. I’ve only _heard _it and well...” she flushes, looks away. He can imagine what she's heard. “I know so little. Only that it will be painful, and many women die.”

As there it is. The other unspoken terror that lies between them. Many women die._ My mother, your mother ._..

She swallows, continues. "I've been told so many times that a woman’s war is in the birthing chamber. I guess I assume it's like going into a battle you can't train for, and that terrifies me.” 

He hugs her to him, tries to bury the fear in love. It's a worthy goal, but futile. Platitudes and kisses don’t work on a Brienne.

He wants to help, but he also doesn’t want to think about it, or let fear spoil his tranquil room. _I didn't think about it with Cersei, _e remembers, with some guilt. _Not until her time had come, when I could hear her screaming, the widwives yelling, and I knew Robert, the cunt, was out hunting. __She had called for me, not Robert, and I went to her, forced my way into the chamber. _The wrinkled old prunes pawing at his sister had been scandalised and told him he couldn’t be there. _"_Who will stop me?" He’d asked. Not one of them tried. _And at the end of it, I was not permitted to hold him. _And so, he’d held Cersei instead. 

With the benefit of hindsight, he suspects their behavior that day was the beginning of the rumors. 

_I will do the same for Brienne, _he thinks. On this point, he’s determined, even though he hasn't quite told her - _asked her_ \- that yet. He’s worried about the answer. For a warrior maid who broke all the rules, she can be frustratingly traditional and conservative at times, and she’d been horrified when he had told her he'd been at Joffrey's birth. He is tossing up between requesting permission in advance, and just turning up anyway and begging for forgiveness later if she’s actually annoyed. He’s more inclined toward the later, particularly as he’s gotten much better at apologies (he couldn’t have started any worse), but a good man, the kind a Brienne seems to think he is, would ask. 

He sets that issue aside for the moment, tries to think how to address the fear.

"Have you spoken to the Measter's wife? Gilly?" he asks slowly.

"A bit," Brienne says nervously. "She’s lovely. But she and her sisters all had easy births, she concedes that. Mine...won't be. I know it." 

No, Jaime agrees sadly. Brienne tends to do things that hard way, and he doubts her womb is any different to the rest of her. 

He feels bloody useless at this. "I told you about Cersei and Joffrey, before, but I think I probably scared you with just the shit bits. I can tell you a little more."

She grimaces. Cersei’s name is still acid on his lips, and he hates to bring her into this relationship, knowing it much hurt Brienne. He's reluctant, too, to share his sister’s confidences, her private experiences. Cersei would not want that. But he can’t erase those memories, either. Despite everything he had done with Cersei, the ways they knew other, her battle to birth Joffrey had forged a whole new level of intimacy between them. He wants that with Brienne too. He wants her to trust him, to want him, to need him as Cersei had on that one occasion.

Brienne considers for a second, feels his reluctance, and then nods. "Only what you're comfortable with."

"Joff's was a hard one," he begins slowly, letting the memories flood back. The sound of Cersei's cries, the smell of the room, the blood and urine, sweat and fear. "She laboured for a day and a half, and it was ... " he shakes his head. "Bad. He fought her, as he always did. It was painful, and she screamed, and I had never felt such fear for her. When Joff slid out of her, it was with blood, and it was messy. But she survived, and when it was over, and she lay, too exhausted even to weep, they placed Joffrey in her arms, and her world closed in around them. I had never seen Cersei happier, or prouder. The look on her face told me it was all worth it to her, and she said later that while she would never forget the pain, she could never regret it.

”The other two were much easier. Good births, the maester said. Still painful, but done in hours.” He smiles at Brienne, a little hopefully. “You could get lucky, too.”

She shakes her head. She will not believe it. _Perhaps doesn’t dare even hope for it. _

He sighs, and looks away from Brienne, up at the roof. "Joff’s birth was the beginning of the change for Cersei, from the girl she had been to the serious woman. She was protective of him, ambitious, but he consumed her. I think, maybe, she wanted to live through him. She did terrible things for him, just as I did for her.” He pauses, offers a chagrined smile. “It's a shame he turned out to be such a little shit." 

Brienne snorts, and Jaime raises an eyebrow. “I can say that, he was my son. Although I was never a father to him, and I couldn’t even protect him as a kingsguard. But the point is, even for my sweet sister, for all her faults, for her self-absorption and ambition, even she thought it was worth it. And she went back twice more.”

Brienne sighs. “I know. I want this baby, and to be a mother. I know it’ll be worth it in the end, but it doesn’t make the getting there any easier.”

"I know." 

She moves closer to him, and he wraps his arms around her, as best he can with the babe between them. She's not often like this, vulnerable, her barriers down. He decides to take the plunge.

"I want to be there with you."

She looks up at him, confused, wide blue eyes meeting his. “What?”

”I want to be with you when you birth our child. For all of it.”

She looks up at him sharply. There's hope in her eyes, but also worry. "You can't..."

"Why can't I?"

"Because ... well, it's not done. Traditionally..."

"Fuck tradition, Brienne. When have you cared about it anyway? Certainly not when you donned mail and joined Renly’s host. When you wore breachers to Joff’s wedding. When I knighted you. Tradition is bullshit. I helped create this babe, I want to be there when it’s finished. And anyway, you’re not doing this alone."

"I won't be alone, I - "

"You're not doing in without me."

His voice is hard, and he can hear in it the remnants of the old Jaime, the dangerous one. 

_I'm still dangerous_, he thinks. _If anyone tries to hurt my wife or child, I will kill them. I can’t even guarantee the safety of anyone who tries to stop me. _

_Even a maester. _

Brienne looks shocked for a moment, and then meets his gaze. He watches as the uncertainty in her eyes is washed away with tears, replaced with that adoring love he knows he doesn't deserve. 

She nods. 

“Thank you, Jaime.”

It's all he needs to hear. 

... 


	2. Waterfalls - Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A birth.

**BRIENNE**

“You were complaining about being graceless,” Jaime is saying, as he leads her down yet another flight of stairs and onto rocky ground in what appears to be a cave. His left hand is clutching her right. “Now, I value my life too much to either agree with you or disagree with you, mad pregnant woman that you are, but I do know one place where you can be graceful again.” 

He is right. She has been complaining, most uncharacteristically she hopes, about being graceless, about being bored, about being cooped up and mollycoddled, and going out of her mind with the need to burn off some energy. She hasn't been this long without training since she was about twelve, and she has visions of her muscles atrophying and forgetting how to use a sword. 

_It’s only a couple of months,_ she keeps reminding herself. _It will be worth it_. But feeling vulnerable takes getting used to. 

Jaime leads her out of the cave, and onto a small, pebbly beach, nestled among the rocks. She guesses where they are immediately.

"The site of your near-death. How romantic."

He snorts. "I'm traumatised just being here. The things I do for love. Do you want to swim or not?"

Brienne looks longingly at the dark waters. She can almost taste the salt of the sea on her lips. 

She nods. "Yes." 

She had heard Tyrion complaining that the secret passages beneath the Red Keep were now so well known that squires were using them as a route to go swimming. She had meant to investigate, but there was never time. _Not until Jaime just made some, albeit by carving it out of my evening nap. _

She pulls her hand free of Jaime's, cautiously waddles over to a rock, and sits to remove her boots. As she does, she looks up to see the dark shadow of the cliff face and the flickering lights of the Red Keep above them. 

"I'm going to have to climb back up, aren’t I?” she asks. 

Jaime sits down next to her and begins tugging of his own boots. “I had considered a rowboat, but … “ he holds up his stump. "Besides, they say climbing stairs induces labour".

“'They?' Is this the 'they' who said the same thing about sex?”

“Indeed, my lovely wife!" He grins.

"It didn't work."

"Maybe it doesn’t work every time? We should try again to be sure.”

He leans over and kisses her. It's a chaste kiss to start, but quickly develops into something more. She feels the familiar heat pool between her legs, along with no small amount of satisfaction. Five months of marriage (longer by the Old Gods), an impending baby, and he still wants her daily. _Sometimes more_. 

_Preferably more. _

It still amazes her that she, _Brienne the Beauty_, can be so desired.

That she feels the same way is less of a surprise. She’s always loved passionately, despite her preference for seemingly unobtainable men. But Jaime’s familiarity is just as intoxicating as the desperate longing she felt before. She knows the texture of the hair on his chest and between his legs, the smell of his hair and skin, the taste of his mouth and his nipples, his cock and his toes. She knows just what to do to make him writhe and moan and scream. She loves it all, and thinking on it makes her want him again. 

But now is not the time, particularly given anyone with eyes could gaze down upon them. Brienne not-so-gently (gently never works with Jaime when he's like this) pushes him away.

“We came here to swim, not to rut."

He almost pouts. “Why can’t we do both? Starting with the rutting.”

She's weak, and sorely tempted, and she lowers her mouth to kiss him, enjoying the feel of his tongue on her lips, then sneaking into her mouth. He pulls open her jerkin and pushes it off her shoulders. He's gotten much better at undressing her with his one hand.

The mood is broken when a sudden wind wraps its tendrils around her and she shivers. The babe inside her jumps too, reminding her of its presence. It's a lovely feeling, like a little bird or a butterfly fluttering, but it's also just as much a lust-killer as the chilly wind. 

“I just realised it's freezing,” she whispers, breaking the kiss.

He groans. “Says the woman who said the north was growing on her." He stands up, offers her a hand. "Come on, it’ll be fine in the water." 

Jaime starts to pulls of his jacket and tunic, exposing his chest, clearly expecting her to do likewise. She looks at him uncertainly, and then back, nervously, to the cave.

"Come on, you can’t swim fully dressed. It will be fine," he flashes her a lascivious look. "I can guarantee we’ll be alone”

“How can you possibly do that?”

“Because I told them to leave us alone. You're the Lord Commander and I'm the Master of Laws. Do you seriously think anyone was game enough to question me?”

She's glad of the dark, because she can feel herself blush. "You told 'them' we were coming down her to be alone? Well, now whoever 'they' are will definitely be watching!"

She glances nervously up at the keep. It _is_ dark. Realistically, anyone watching would strain their eyes. Sighing, she shrugs out of her long tunic and breeches and strips down to her shift.

He looks disappointed that she doesn't go further. “You can do better than that.”

“No.”

"Suit yourself." 

He grins, and continues to pull off his own clothes. 

Brienne turns to pick her way down to the ocean across the pebbles. She can feel his eyes on her as she does. Pregnancy had given her breasts and softer hips, and she feels that femininity in how she walks and carries herself. Gilly had suggested she might get to keep them - "some women do". No doubt Jaime would approve.

Still, he's probably watching her as much out of concern as lust. He has turned hovering and protective, and she finds it both endearing and annoying. It's also unnecessary. Grumbling aside, she doesn't feel quite the invalid she thought she would. Her bump is not overly prominent, she still feels fine, and while she's not about to join a melee, she can walk well enough. Truth be told, she's more concerned about Jaime's ability to get back up the stairs then her own. The wounds on his stomach still pain him. _And he's getting old_, she thinks with a fond smile. 

The babe kicks within her, sharing the joke, and she runs her hand over her belly. "Ready for your first swim, little lion?"

She glides her feet into the water. It's cool, but not cold, warmer than the air really. She advances further, up to her knees, her waist, before jumping into the water, letting its cool depths embrace her. She's been swimming for as long as she can remember, and she's good at it. Jaime was right - it does make her feel graceful. 

She hears splashing, and Jaime follows her into the water. He is a strong swimmer as well, but without a hand he's noticeably lopsided. 

She glides through the water, Jaime hovering near, until he tries to grab her. She squeals, and ducks away. It’s childish, but fun. She can remember playing a similar game as a young child with Galladon. They had spent hours on the beach_. But then he was gone_. Her attempts to play with other children to often ended in tears.

Eventually, Jaime captures her, pulling her to him in the dark water. Despite the cold, he is hot and hard against her hip. He pulls her back to where he can stand, then draws her mouth down to his. In the water she is as light as any other woman, as delicate as Sansa. She wraps her legs around him, leaning back to make space for the baby between them. He reaches between them to try to put himself into her, but despite their best efforts it’s not successful, and they end up foundering and splashing in the water and laughing like fools. 

He grins. "That belly is just too big, even for me."

She’s delighted to him him amused. It’s still rare enough to be important. She’s tempted to stay and wrestle, but she's desperate for a relief that not even the cold water can provide. She takes Jaime’s hand, and leads him to the beach. He follows happily, erection bobbing as he walks. When they are nearly out of the water, she pushes him back onto the pebbly sand, the rough ground beneath his back. Then she mounts him, sinking down to take his length inside her. She holds his hand and stump in hers, raising them before her, and moves on top of him, slowly and gently, rocking, until he spills inside her with a groan. 

Later, they gather their clothes, dress, and begin the long climb up the stairs.

"Worth every step," Jaime smirks.

"We're not even halfway up," she pants in reply, but she's sure her sated smile is the inspiration for the satisfaction that glows on his face.

It’s then she feels the sudden wetness between her legs. It feels like a gush of liquid, although when she looks it is only dribbling out of her. 

Her waters have broken.

The baby is coming. 

She stares at the small puddle on the stairs beneath her in mortified shock, but Jaime takes it in his stride.

"I guess the sex and stairs worked?" He jokes. 

She chuckles uneasily. He tries to smile, but she can see the fear in his eyes, knows it to be reflected in her own. _We’re not ready,_ she thinks. She doesn't even have anything to stem the flow of her waters. _But when would we ever be ready?_ She takes Jaime’s offered arm and begins the rest of the climb. 

He talks, nervously, but his words dance and disappear in her head. _I'm going to be a mother _is the only thing she can hear. 

Her contractions start before she reaches the top. They begin low in her back, above her buttocks, a pounding, grinding sensation of movement and preparation. They're tolerable, occasional, and it's possible to climb through them. A rumbling, distant thunder, an ominous warning of the storm to come.

She's relieved to reach her chambers just as a harder contraction hits.

“Seven...” she gasps. Her fingers dig into Jaime's arm. He doesn't flinch. 

She is vaguely aware of him yelling at someone to get Gilly. _Yes,_ she thinks, _Gilly. Gilly can help me have a baby!_

Jaime assists her onto the bed, pulls off her boots, helps her strip off the clothes it feels like she only just put back on. After some deliberation, she leaves her still-damp shift on, but even that feels hot and heavy upon her skin.

Brienne sits on the bed and waits for the inevitable pain. She feels fragile, like glass, brittle and breakable. She wonders if she might cry. Instead she starts to laugh. She's beginning to panic. Jaime stands in the light of the fire, looking nervous and uncertain himself. She reaches for him, and he steps back to her, takes her hand. Rubs her back and tells her to breathe slowly, calm down, he's there.

He's a comfort as another contraction hits. She suddenly longs for her mother. _But I hardly knew her..._ Her father, then. Someone. She clutches at Jaime. 

"Don't leave me," she begs,

He nods, “of course I won’t”. He kisses her gently. "I'll be here. We agreed." 

His voice is calm, but rough, and his eyes look grey and scared.

The next wave of pain comes and subsides, and this time she does cry out. Gilly arrives, basket under her arm, as the last pangs of the contraction shudder through her.

Gilly asks something, but its lost in the ringing between her ears. 

"Her waters have broken," Jaime says in response. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, so Brienne doesn't listen. She cedes control. 

Gilly and Jaime talk, their voices distant. She breathes deeply, awaits the next onslaught, then groans as it hits. 

Brienne had known labour would hurt, but she had been clawed and ripped and cut and crushed, by man and beast both. Her body was a cartographer's map of scars and marks and lines. She had thought that meant she knew pain, that it would be nothing new. She realises she was wrong. 

As scared as she had been, _terrified_, she had believed deep down that when her time came, she would handle it, as she did everything else. But, she’d realises now, she was wrong about that too. Labour isn’t like everything else. It isn't like _anything_ else. It isn't even like anything she had imagined. It is dark and primal, a terror and agony that tears at her from the insider out, shatters her like brittle glass, but fills her strength and longing.

It's remaking me, she realises. Remaking me as a mother.

What had Catelyn Stark said to her all those years ago? _A battle without banners or warhorns, but no less fierce_. 

The battlefield was her body, and victory the survival her and her child.

Another contraction hits. This time she cries loudly, grips Jaime's hand. She's not laughing now. She thinks she might cry.

_Hours,_ she thinks desperately, _I have hours of this_.

And she does.

Morning comes, and with it the light of the sun. It burns her eyes and skin and she begs to have the window closed. She finds herself squatting, grunting with the pain and pressure, primal and raw, and then leaning against the bed, legs apart, crying and moaning. The contractions are all consuming, but in the quiet time between them she can hear the gulls on the wind, the calls of fishwives and egg sellers and the drunks at the taverns. _ Life goes on._ She wonders if they can hear her when she cries, whether the sounds of the battle echo from the tower above them to the city below.

Time passes and she grunts, and she yells, and she swears. At one time, she nearly prays. She is sick. Gilly gives the bucket to Jaime and tells him to empty it, and he reluctantly leaves for moments that feel like hours to do so. She makes it to the chamber pot, again and again, and she should be embarrassed but she finds she doesn't care. And through it, Jaime holds her hand and rubs her back her tells her to be strong.

_But I'm running out of strong_, she thinks. _I want to be weak. __I want someone else to do this. _

She had never anticipated this. Never understood, really. She was made for battlelines and melees and wars outside herself. Men's battles, external, controllable, not the chaotic woman's war that rages inside of her. 

As the light in the window begins to fade, she feels the warmth draining from her too. She’s tired, so tired. She wants to close her eyes and sleep forever. She wants to get up and run and leave the pain behind her. She wants to be anywhere but here.

_Go away inside_. Hadn't Jaime told her do to that? When was that? But where could she go? She is so exhausted, she doesn't want to go anywhere but to sleep. She thinks of Tarth, of the mountains and fields and waterfalls. She thinks of taking her child there. The meadows call to her, cool and soothing, and the streams and glades and ponds. She dreams of diving into the ocean waters. She can feel the wetness embracing her, comforting, pulling her down into the quiet.

But then the waters become the darkness of night. Cool. Numbing. Nothing. She wants to feel nothing. She wants everything to stop. 

And then the pain hits her again. She's being dragged across rocks, burnt and seared and rubbed raw. She screams.

_I'm likely dying,_ she thinks. Then, _if so_,_ please let it happen before the next one._

She is aware of voices above her, whispered words. It's a soft sound, only audible now in the wake of the thunder of the pain. 

"We need to ask Jaime.” Sam, that’s Sam. Sam is in her chambers. “He must be prepared to decide.”

Gilly's strangled reply. “You can’t! You can't ask him that question. No matter what he decides, he will never be able to live with himself.” 

They were talking about her_. So I really am dying, _she realises. The realisation is distant and detached. It's almost a relief. 

_Was it not a glorious thing to die in battle? To let the Stranger take her, and the battlefield within her?_

But then she thinks of the baby. _If I die I will take her with me_. Or perhaps, Jaime would have to choose. Her mind races. _He must choose the baby! _ She must tell him to choose the baby! But she can't speak. Her eyes won't open. And she can't do that to Jaime. Gilly was right. She can't make him choose. 

The Lord Commander’s chambers seem so far away now. Blurry and noisy and terrifying and filled with pain. She doesn't want to go back. _But I have to_, she thinks. 

"Brienne!” Gilly's soft voice. 

Then Jaime's, more urgent. "Brienne! Come back to me, love. Brienne!"

She tries. She tries to pull herself back. Imagines walking up that staircase again, from the dark to the light. The pain increases, and her fear of it is gripping her, holding her back, pulling her into the blackness.

_I’m a fighter_ she tells herself. _ I will fight this. _She sees herself with a sword, then. _Oathkeeper. I swore my oaths. I swore to Jaime to love him, to stand by him, to raise our children. _She turns, and strikes the black tendrils of fear that hold her, her blade flashing in her mind. 

The flash of the blade dulls into the light of the room. She opens her eyes. 

Jaime is staring at her. "Fucking hell, woman. Thank the Seven!" He meets her eyes, and his are filled with tears and panic. He grasps her hand more tightly, and kisses her forehead.

"I need to ... need." She groans, the pain more urgent. She doesn’t know what she needs, except to get the baby out. 

"She needs to to push," says Gilly, from somewhere near Brienne’s feet. She’s on her back. _How did that happen?_ "Help me get her up."

Jaime lets go of her hand -_come back,_ she thinks - but then holds her again under her arms. They try to make her sit, but she wants to be on her hands and knees, and she folds into that position. She can feel feel herself writhing, swaying, groaning. _Brienne the sow_, the thinks. She manages a groaning laugh.

Jaime's hands are on her back, rubbing, telling her he loves her, to stay with him, to be strong. She thinks he is crying, but she can't look at him now. 

"Help her..." he asks Gilly. 

"I don't need to," Gilly says, "she's going beautifully now."

Brienne senses the wildling girl move behind her, peer at her, seeing what only Jaime has before. Sam is beside her. Another man. In another time she'd be shocked and mortified, but right now she doesn't care.

Another contraction hits. 

"I can see her head, Brienne. You're almost there."

Its like a huge stone, shoving through her pelvis. Pain, grinding agony, and shock. She screams. 

"Almost there, Brienne, you need to push."

She pushes, because there was nothing left to do. Because her life depends on it, and her child's, and probably Jaime's too. She pushes and pushes.

There's pain, a new type, sharp and bloody. Something tears. And then there's relief, and a rush of something that feels like water, or blood. 

For a moment she can hear nothing but her own panting. Then, seconds later, a babies cry. 

She collapses with a sob.

”A girl,” says Gilly, relieved but uncertain.

”I knew it!” Jaime’s voice, distant, delighted, ever so slightly mocking. _He was right. I’ll never hear the end of it. _

"It's not quite over, Brienne," Sam says gently. "We need to get the afterbirth, but you can lie down, roll over for that."

She does. Numbly follows his instructions. She watches as Gilly brings her the baby, naked, squalling, crying and covered in mess. _My daughter. _ Gilly places her on her chest, just below her breasts. 

"She's perfect," Gilly says.

Brienne just stares. Ten fingers and toes, with their tiny nails. Her ears, the delicate eyelashes, the rosebud mouth. Ears shut tight. The wet, crusted hair that may well be gold. 

And then the wave of emotion hits her. She's exhausted and terrified, overwhelmed and overwrought, and, looking at her little girl, so very much in love. 

"I can't believe you're finally here," she whispers. It's so new, and yet she feels she's known this child her entire life. 

He glances up at her husband, and he smiles back at her, eyes shining and filed with awe. He swallows, and opens his mouth. 

But whatever he was about to say gets lost in the babe's hearty, deafening squall.

Gilly and Sam, still doing _something _between her legs, both jump. 

"That's a set of lungs," Gilly says. "Definitely yours, m’lord."

He laughs, halfheartedly, seemingly too tired to really see any humour in it.

Gilly approaches and shows Brienne how to attach the baby to her breast. It takes a few goes, but they get it. The feel of her suckling is also like nothing she could have imagined. 

Sam and Gilly pack up the basket as she feeds the baby. She's so tired, she can barely speak. Her arms feel like lead and her feet are dead. Jaime sits on the bed and watches her, his hand on her thigh protectively. 

Finally, babe falls asleep, her small mouth releasing Brienne's nipple with a soft pop. 

Gilly puts the final things in the basket, the gives her patient a gentle pat. "You need rest, m'lady. Lots of it. And I think m'lord wants to meet his daughter."

Jaime's eyes go wide with shock and pleasure. _Gods, yes. __ How could she have forgotten that?_

Brienne smiles at Jaime, and gently lifts their daughter from her breast, holds her out slightly. She gurgles, but doesn’t wake. Her tiny hands are curled into fists. _A fighter, like her parents._ He stands, awkwardly, hurries closer, and reaches out to take her, his arms shaking as much as hers. 

"Hello, beautiful," he whispers to her, as he collects her into his embrace. 

Gilly bustles over, and helps, showing him how to hold the baby in his arms, and against his shoulder, making some adjustments for the stump. Cleverly, subtly, she assist him into a chair. _He is like to drop from exhaustion too, _she thinks. 

"I made up the crib and there's fresh linens on the dresser," Gilly says. "You'll need them, lots of them. But get some rest, and I'll come check on you in a few hours."

Brienne nods, and her eyes start to drift close. 

She has done it. _They_ have done it. Despite all the men they have killed, the death they have wrought to enemies, Jaime and her have now made a life. A perfect daughter. Together.

She falls asleep to the sight of her husband, sitting in the chair beside her, their daughter clutched to his chest, and tears running down his face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime needs a final POV. I'll write three chapters. I'll try and get Jaime's done tomorrow.
> 
> See notes on the previous chapter.


	3. Everything - Jaime

**JAIME**

He watches Brienne suffer in agony. He watches her writhe and scream and cry and beg for it all to stop. He watches her pale and fading. He'd watches her nearly die. As the hours drag on, his life is reduced to the bedroom,_ the birthing room_, with its smell of vomit and blood, and to a cycle of fear, hope and guilt, again and again, broken only by bouts of sheer terror. Throughout it all, he feels useless and shamed, a man of action with nothing to do, other than empty a bloody bucket. It had been bad with Cersei, but not this bad. He had never thought his sister might die. 

At one point he takes the bucket outside the room, and adds to it, emptying the contents of his stomach to the green bile that was all that was left in Brienne's. He stares at the mess, and wishes he could vomit out his fear as easily. He collapses against the door, takes gulping breathes, and tries, but fails, not to cry. 

But Brienne doesn't die. She fights back from the brink like the warrior she is. _A woman's kind of courage_, he has heard that bravery described as, but it's battlefield courage too, the same shown by anyone going to war, only maybe more so. _Mothers can't run away, or surrender, or lay down and pretend to be dead. _ When she comes back to him she does so with a roar. A true lioness. She groans and claws at the bed and she's sweaty and messy and primal and raw. All he can do is hold her, and tell her he loves her. _I love you, you are strong and brave and everything to me and you can do this, please do this, don't leave me, come back to me Brienne..._

At one time, he even prays to gods he doesn't truly believe exist. 

When his daughter finally slithers out from between his wife's legs, in a wave of blood and mess, he feels for a terrifying and intoxicating moment as if the weight of the world rises from his shoulders. But when he looks at the tiny, defenseless creature, with her balled fists and hearty scream, that same burden falls straight back down again, driving him into the ground with a bone shattering crash of reality. 

She's his to care for, and its now his duty to do right by her. 

"Hello, beautiful," he whispers, when she is finally placed in his arms. 

It's not what he planned to say. For weeks, maybe even months, he has imagined how he would greet this child. He had planned the words, rehearsed them in his mind, even tried them on his lips. He wanted to tell her how proud he was of her, how he loved her, how he would protect her and care for her and be the father he should have been before, the one he desperately wants to be now. But now she's here, he can't remember any of that. He's tongue-tied and speechless and reduced to cooing sounds. There's a lump in his throat. He's not sure he trusts himself to talk.

Gilly helps him to a chair, and gives him various directions (_commands? Are these orders?_), but he doesn't really hear them. He's bleary-eyed and fuzzy-headed and feeling embarrassingly emotional. _I'm e__xhausted, _he tells himself. But he knows that's only half the truth. He's overwrought and overwhelmed and madly, insanely in love, with his wife and daughter both. There's room in his muddled mind for nothing else. The rest of world could fuck off and cease to exist and he wouldn't even notice as long as he was with them.

Once Gilly leaves, he falls asleep in the chair where she left him, clutching the babe to his chest. He wakes - minutes? hours? - later with the with a panicked sense that he might drop her. He doesn't. _I wouldn't. __I am never letting her go. _He stares down at the tiny face, swaddled in linens. She's still asleep, her eyes squeezed shut and her tiny, pudgy cheek against his chest. He wants to tear off his shirt, feel his daughter's soft, new skin against his, but he is afraid to move, lest this dream come shattering down around him. 

Instead, he shuffles her a little, _as little as possible, _until he's holding her with his stump. He brings his left hand up to adjust the swaddling clothes and get a better look at her. He gently pushes back a piece of the linen that covers her head, her messy, dirty blonde hair. Fascinated, he examines the shell of her ear, the fall of her pale lashes, the tiny fingers on the little hand that rest under her jaw. She has a rosebud mouth, _like a Lannister_, he thinks with a little relief (although he'll never admit such to Brienne), but her nose turns up rather dramatically at the tip. _Gods, I hope it won’t be too pug_. That too can be Lannister. 

He tries to remember what Myrcella had looked like at this age. He remembers the tiny mouth, the tousled blonde hair, but little more. He had only been permitted to hold her once, briefly, and Cersei had been anxious over even that. “She looks too much like you, more so even than Joff", she had warned him in a frenetic whisper, trying to wrestle the bundle of cloth out of his arms almost as soon as he'd taken her. She'd been right of course, right to be scared, and no matter the bitterness he'd felt in that moment, he'd known it too. So, he had done what he always did when confronted by trauma, he had _gone away inside. Gone away and pretended not to care until I finally believed it_. Uncle Jaime, knight of the kingsguard, a man of war with no interest in children. He'd been bloody good at self-delusion, carried on for years. Until he saw Myrcella again in Dorne, untilt he moments shortly before she died in his arms, when every wall he'd built around his heart had fallen. 

_No more bloody walls. No more secrecy and pretending. Never again._

Looking at his daughter in his arms, he has no idea how he managed to maintain that pretense for so long. 

The babe's eyelashes flutter, and he watches, fascinated, as she opens her eyes and meets his gaze. _Blue eyes_, he thinks. _S__apphires, like Brienne's. _For a long powerful moment, his daughter stares at him, and he feels frozen in time. _I'm you father_, he tells her with his eyes, _your protector, your home. _He thinks maybe, maybe she recognises him, _knows him_, and understands. 

But then she squeezes her little eyes shut, opens her toothless mouth, and begins to wail.

"She's hungry."

Jaime starts, looks to his left. Brienne is awake, or as close to it as she can be after a day and night of hard and terrifying work and little rest. She is watching them both, her eyes soft and wet. He hastens to stand, almost keels over, and tries again a little more slowly. Brienne struggles to sit up and grimaces, but holds out her hands nonetheless. He passes the babe to her, finding it almost physically painful to be parted from her. _She's in good hands._ He helps his wife, _the mother of my child_, to sit up. He is surprised to find her still weak and shaky. She's almost never weak, always reluctant to seem needy, even around him. The only times he's seen her shaky are in an entirely different context. But the time to think about _that_ again will come much, much later. 

He watches in silence, awestruck, as Brienne puts the babe to her breast. In that moment, she seems to forget everything around her, the room, the pain, even that he is watching her, her whole attention focused on the baby suckling at her breast. Jaime feels a slight uneasiness, almost as if he's intruding. But then she looks up at him, smiles her smile of crowded teeth, and lowers her eyes to the edge of the bed. _Sit. _ He grins nervously, and then tentatively takes a place beside her. _Beside th__em. My family. _

He is filled with pride and joy, even as he aches with regret that he missed this with his other family, his first. Only_ we were never truly a family, were we? We couldn't be. _How could he have allowed that to happen?

The baby suckles loudly, drawing his attention, and he chuckles. "She has your table manners."

"And your appetite," Brienne replies. 

He watches them for a moment, then asks, "how do you feel?”

“Sore,” she sighs. "Bruises everywhere, and torn too I think. It's worse than morning after the Long Night, truth be told, and I feel just as filthy."

He frowns, nods. “That was one bloody terrifying battle you just fought." He can't take her hand, as they're both needed for the baby, so he settles for resting his left on her leg. "I nearly lost you..." he whispers, his voice cracking.

She takes a shaky breath. "But you didn't. And she's worth it."

Brienne says it with utter conviction, but he's not sure how to answer her, how to weigh worth and risk and the dangers of childbirth. Perhaps, as with some wars, the peril and pain of labour is something that just has to be endured. _A woman's lot, one carried by women everywhere, even those as extraordinary and unusual as Cersei and Brienne. And a __burden sadly unknown to most men._ He's just glad his wife and child are alive, and well, and here with him. 

There's a knock on the door, and Gilly returns as promised, looking tired and weathered herself. This time she brings two baskets, one of linens and one of food. Bread, cheese, a little salted meat and hot potatoes. "Make sure she eats some, she needs it for the milk," Gilly instructs him, setting it down on the table.

He turns away and prepares the food as Gilly helps Brienne use the chamber pot, and then changes the blood-soaked linens between her legs. "We had to sew you up a bit, so you're going to be sore. I'll get some boiled water sent up for you to wash up in a bit, but no bath for a day or so, you don’t want to things going bad." 

Brienne nods and grimaces. While she's not overly fastidious, no one used to long periods on the road and life in battle camps can be, the idea of going without a bath for another couple of days is clearly not an appealing one. _I'll have to wash her with the cloth, _Jaime thinks. Surprisingly, it's not an unpleasant thought at all. There's a strange longing in his chest to take care of her, to be part of this. _I'll bath the baby too_, he thinks. 

Gilly fusses for a few more minutes, checks how the baby has attached to Brienne's breast, and tidies and cleans. Jaime lingers near the table, fidgeting uncomfortably but trying to listen to Gilly's nattering. _Too many instructions, too much to do. _He appreciates her help, but he just wants to be alone with his family. _Now. _

_Get out_, he thinks silently. _Out, out, out. _

Finally, Gilly packs up and heads for the door. Then, with her hand on the latch, she turns back and smiles. "You had a hard time of it, m'lady, but you were brave. You did well."

Brienne smiles, shakes her head a little as if in disagreement, but she's not minded to argue. 

Jaime takes the food back to her, and she hands him their daughter so she can eat some. He's relieved to see she's ravenous, and just as relieved to have his child back in his arms. 

"I was thinking we should call her Joanna," Brienne says then, between mouthfuls of food. "After your mother."

They had discussed this before, usually lying in bed after a good and tiring fuck, sticky and languid and half asleep. But without the baby it was never _real. _He was never been consulted about his other children. What does he know anyway? _The only thing I've ever named is a horse. _

Still, he smiles. _Joanna. _It would be lovely. Everything he has heard about his mother, from Genna, Kevan or Gerion, has always been for the good. Kind but firm, good, wise, and a moderating influence on their father. She is a worthy namesake, and yet...

"I don't want our daughter to carry anyone's legacy," he says eventually. "I'd rather she be her own woman."

Brienne raises an eyebrow, but doesn't disagree. "A new name, then?"

He nods. 

"What about Lyanna?"

Jaime laughs, but stops when the baby stirs, and looks chagrined. "After that mad little girl who charged the giant at Winterfell? A worthy namesake, but Lyanna is the name of Snow's mother, too, and it's a northern name besides. We may as well call her Sansa, and I've already said no to that.” 

Brienne rolls her eyes. Jaime knows Brienne loves the woman, and Tyrion doubtlessly does too, but he can't shake the feeling she is secretly plotting his violent assassination, possibly by way of one of her heart-stopping glares. _If Tyrion and Sansa Stark ever get around to working out what to do with their maybe-a-marriage we are going to have some very uncomfortable family dinners. _

"We're back to Alysanne, then," Brienne says, gently. He watches, fascinated, as she moves the babe from one breast to the other. "It's the name of my sister, who died in the cradle, but she was too young to create a legacy of her own, so there's nothing to live up to."

"Other than a legendary, dragon riding queen." But he smiles and nods. It's a beautiful name, used in the Stormlands and the Westerlands. A name filled with promise and hope. 

Brienne has finished eating, so he takes the plate, stands up to return it to the table. Every step away from the bed, his family, feels like a painful mile. He hurries back. Alysanne's asleep against Brienne's breast. He picks her up, gently, and lays her in the crib. 

"You realise she'll probably be a dramatic, demanding egotist, like her father," Brienne jokes as he turns back to her.

"And mulishly stubborn, like her mother. A wonderful combination," he smiles. "Bound to be popular at court."

"An easy child to raise then," Brienne says sardonically. "Let's get some sleep while we can."

Jaime strips off his tunic and breeches and crawls into bed next to his wife. She settles against him, head on his chest. She's naked, he realises vaguely, and that's to the good, as he can gently stroke her sticky, sweaty skin. She drifts off to sleep in moments, snoring softly against his chest. He kisses the mattered hair on the top of his head, then turns to gaze at his daughter. _Alysanne. _He feels the world closing in around him, as if tare alone in the world. _Just them. _After all his years with Cersei and their narcissistic dance, _this togetherness, the completeness, this is really what __it really means to think nothing else matters. _

Except that it does. _Everything else matters. _

_Everything._

The world into which his daughter has been born is broken and tattered, ravished and burnt, and he played his part in making it that way. He owes it to her to help repair it, to make it as good as it can be. For her, and her children, and everyone else. _Innocent or otherwise_. 

It's an overwhelming weight of responsibility, and he already feels the burden of it lying heavily across his shoulders. He will have to get back to work. _But that's tomorrow, not today. _For now, he just wants to sleep, with his family, in this warm and familiar room. _Which really needs an airing. _

He still carries a heavy burden of guilt for his first three children, and even perhaps for Cersei. He will carry that guilt and loss forever, as he should. Never will he forget. But he still can't quite believe his luck. Despite everything he has done, everything he is, and everything that has happened, he has ended with everything he wanted. 

He holds Brienne close, closes his eyes, and falls asleep wondering how he stumbled into something so wonderful. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the name of the chapter on childbirth in Antonia Fraser’s _The Weaker Vessel, Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England_. I believe they were used by a Viscountess to describe her experience. I read the book in my twenties, well before children, and the words have always stayed with me. __
> 
> __  
_I gave birth in a modern hospital where, despite a very difficult labour that would have killed me a century ago, it turned out my only real worry was whether I would get a private room. I am in awe of every woman, through the world today and over the past 100,000 or so years, who went through that without the medical and other support I had._  



End file.
